Death at the Zoo; murder, suicide and drunken accidents in the first 75 years of London's Zoological Gardens

Children of all ages will be Interested in the chatty and pleasant account of "Half Holidays at the Zoo," issued from the Westminster Gazette office. It is illustrated by a large number of capital photographs of all the popular favourites. The "Zoo" has been an institution since 1826, and during that time there have been only two fatalities-one being the accidental crushing of an old man by an elephant, the other, the result of a drunken man playing with a cobra. The London "Zoo," we are told, Is the most famous, most complete, and richest of all "Zoos” and it has an Income of £20,000 a year.

Derby Mercury - Wednesday 27 November 1895

Charles Morley and Hulda Friederich’s ‘chatty and pleasant’ collection of sketches from the Westminster Gazette, published as ‘Half Holidays at the Zoo’ certainly did not mention the deaths of Edward Horatio Girling, who was bitten by a cobra in 1852, or parrot keeper Goss, who was crushed by an elephant in 1879, so quite why the anonymous reviewer in the Derby Mercury felt compelled to raise them is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps he (surely it was a he) was rather disappointed that the close and risk filled proximity of human beings with so many large, wild and dangerous animals had only resulted in a mere two deaths in over 70 years.

On 23 October 1852 the Daily News reported that on the previous day “Mr. WakIey held the inquest on Edward Horatio Girling, killed by the bite of the Cobra at the Zoological Gardens on Wednesday” at the York and Albany public house, on the Parkway in Camden, just a short distance from the zoo.  The jury were first taken to view Girling’s corpse and were then walked to the zoo to see the snake that had killed him. Whilst they were at the zoo David Mitchell, the Secretary of the Zoological Society, gave them an impromptu lecture on the proper manner of handling venomous reptiles, using a wire. The newspaper noted that during Mitchell’s talk “the serpent was taking the water… It is about five feet long, with a flat broad head and a yellow mark at the back of its neck.” Back at the pub the jury listened to an account of Girling’s last moments alive, given by Mr GF Burdett the surgeon who had attended him when he had been brought to hospital. They heard that Girling was almost unconscious, unable to speak and kept pointing to his throat. His complexion was livid and there were 10 small puncture wounds on either side of his nose. Burdett ordered Girling to be placed in bed and as his breathing failed artificial respiration and galvanic shocks were applied to try and revive him. Artificial respiration was continued for 40 minutes after Girling stopped being able to breath by himself but to no avail. “The most certain remedy would have been for some person to have sucked the wound the instant after the bite, if any one could have been found having the boldness to do it,” Mr Wakley commented helpfully.

How had Girling been bitten? According to Edward Stewart, the Humming Bird keeper and Girling’s friend, the pair had left work at 6pm the day before the accident and gone to Girling’s for their ‘tea’ and had then gone out to see a friend who was moving to Australia. They had drunk some porter at the friend’s house and then moved on to a public house in Shoe Lane where they had spent the entire night drinking before going back to work at around 6am the following morning, where they breakfasted on gin. Stewart was asked if Girling was intoxicated. “No, no not at all, just a little excited,” the humming bird keeper told the jury. Shortly after 8am Stewart was passing through the reptile house with a basket of larks when he saw Girling remove a rocco snake from its enclosure. Stewart ran over to him and told him ‘For Gods sake’ to put the snake back. Girling laughed, said “I am inspired!” and draped the snake around Stewart’s neck. Stewart again told him to put the snake back, which he did. Then he walked over to another vivarium saying “Now for the cobra!”  Stewart again asked him what he thought he was doing but Girling ignored him, removed the snake and slipped it into his waistcoat. The cobra passed through the waistcoat and Girling took hold of it in the middle of its body. The snake pulled back and then darted at Girling’s face, biting on either side of the nose. The jury learned that Girling was employed at wages of one guinea a week and that he had no experience of handling animals. His previous job had been as a guard on the Eastern Counties Railway. David Mitchell had trained Girling himself and told the jury that he had previously reprimanded him for not taking sufficient care when feeding the adders. None of the witnesses said that they had ever seen Girling intoxicated but the jury were having none of that, they thought Girling had clearly had far too much to drink and brought in a verdict of “died from the mortal effects of wounds produced from the bite of a venomous serpent, known the cobra de capello, and that the said injuries were the results of his own rashness whilst in state of intoxication.”

There was a near miss in the summer of 1867 when, according to the ‘Illustrated Police News’ (06 July 1867) an unnamed ‘countryman’ descended unobserved into the bear pit to recover his hat which had fallen into the enclosure. He was immediately “seized by one of the bears upon his arriving at the bottom of the pit. No sooner had this taken place when two other boars immediately came from their cave and also seized him, and began dragging him towards it.” The spectators began to throw their walking sticks at the bears hoping to distract them. A nearby zookeeper saved the day by rushing to the scene, At the sound of his voice the bears abandoned their quarry and ‘slunk back to their cave’. Another newspaper quoted by the Police News noted that “a man will do astonishing things to recover his hat! A peculiar sentiment seems, indeed, to attach to that objectionable head-dress, resembling the feeling with which an ancient Roman or Greek regarded his shield.”  

On Sunday 18 May 1879 the Era reported on the inquest held on the death of the Zoo’s parrot house keeper, who was 72 years when he was crushed by an elephant (none of the newspaper accounts dignified keeper Goss with a first name);

Fatal Accident at the Zoological Gardens. An inquest was held on Wednesday afternoon by Dr. Hardwicke, at the University College Hospital, on the body of Goss, the keeper of the parrot-house at the Zoological Gardens, who died from the effects of injuries inflicted on him on Easter Tuesday last by an elephant. The house surgeon to the hospital stated that the patient was admitted with a fractured leg, the small bone having been broken. There was also a dislocation of the large bone of the leg from the corresponding bone of the ankle joint. The seventh rib was also fractured. Amputation of the leg was performed, but the patient, who was seventy-two years old, died of the shock of the wounds and the operation. Barnes, the driver of the elephants, stated that he left his beasts for a few minutes in order to get a pair of steps for the visitors to mount, and that he asked Goss to stand at the elephant's head while he went for the steps. When he returned, he found Goss sitting down on the seat. He said that the elephant had trodden on him and broken his leg. The animals had already been three times round the Gardens before the accident happened. They were quiet as usual. Mr A. D. Bartlett, who has been manager of the Gardens for twenty years, stated that the four Indian elephants had always been perfectly gentle, and that he had never known any of them show symptoms of temper or vice at any time. He was on the spot a few minutes after the accident. Barnes had gone for the steps, and Goss was standing by the elephant's head when the animal suddenly started forward, pushed Goss over, and trod on his foot. He thought it possible that some mischievous person had prodded the elephant from behind with a stick or umbrella, or else pulled his tail, thus making him suddenly start forwards. The elephant was presented by the Prince of Wales, and was named Restom. He was one of the smaller elephants, and weighed a ton and a quarter. He was by no means a vicious or ill-tempered animal. Goss had been a keeper in the elephant-house before he was made keeper of the parrot-house. He had been in the Society's service many years, amid bore a very excellent character. The Jury returned a verdict of " Accidental Death."

Searching the records I have been able to identify ‘Goss’ as John Goss, born in Pakenham in Suffolk in 1806. He married Mary Ann Dean at St Dunstan’s in the West on 21 October 1834 and the couple went on to have seven children, six girls and one boy. At the time of his death he was living at 2 Egbert Street, NW1 in the house of the Zoo’s superintendent, Clarence Bartlett, presumably a relative of the Mr A.D. Bartlett who gave evidence at the inquest.

SUICIDE AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.  Dr H. Wynn Westcott held an inquest on Saturday, at the Ossington Coffee Tavern, Marylebone, concerning the death of William Farrow, forty-three years old, a helper In the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens, residing at 26, Egbert-place, St. Georges-road, Regent's Park, who on Thursday morning was found in a room adjoining the monkey- house with his throat cut. Ann Farrow, widow of the deceased, said her husband occasionally drank, and was then violent. He kept a razor for shaving at the gardens. The coroner's officer said Farrow took the elephant Alice to Mr. Barnum in America. Benjamin Morley, a labourer at the Zoological Gardens, deposed to finding the deceased in a room adjoining the monkey-house, lying on a truss of straw with his throat cut. He lived about a quarter of an hour after witness discovered him. James Baker, money-taker at the Gardens, said he found a razor smeared with blood in a box about forty yards from the deceased. The widow said the paper produced was a in her husband's handwriting. He gave it to her on Monday evening. He was playing with bis children, and wrote the paper, promising to become a teetotaller on and after the 16th inst., that date being the anniversary of the deceased's return from India, and with their youngest child finished the writinq. Mr. Charles Bartlett, acting superintendent at the Zoological Gardens, stated that the deceased had at been in the employ of the Zoological Society for nineteen years. Two years ago, because of his intemperate habits, he was, reduced from the position of a keeper to that of helper. Lately he had been very unsteady. The witness remonstrated with him, to and he promised to become a teetotaller. During the past fortnight he had kept sober, or nearly so. Twelve months ago he took out two lions to the Calcutta gardens, and returned with a rhinoceros and a tiger, After hearing the evidence of Dr. T. Bennett the jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst  in a state of temporary insanity, induced by habits of habitual Alcoholic intemperance.

The accounts of another suicide the following year were much terser. This is from the Western Gazette of Friday 09 November 1888;

A well-dressed man committed suicide on Wednesday morning shooting himself through the head with a revolver in the Zoological Garden. The man died instantly.

My attempts to find out more about this incident have all resulted in failure. Although the suicide was widely reported, interestingly there were no follow up stories in any newspapers that I can trace even though there must have been an inquest. In January 1898 25-year-old Ernest Harrison, a keeper at the zoo, shot himself in the head in his lodgings there. According to the Morning Leader of Thursday 06 January 1898 “he was seen by another keeper at quarter-past nine, and had requested the latter to feed his cranes. He seemed greatly depressed at the time. When the second keeper relurned to Harrison’s room at half past ten he found the door bolted and the blinds drawn. Climbing on to the roof and looking through the skylight he saw Harrison lying on the ground with a rifle wound in his head. The wounded man was at once removed to the North-Western Hospital in Kentish Town-rd., where he died shortly before two o’clock in the afternoon. The deceased was a native of Lincolnshirse, and his family have been communicated with. His age was 25. By his side, when discovered, was found a bottle of carbolic, and it is thought that he took poison before shooting himself through the mouth.”

In 1911 another keeper shot himself through the head in his room at the keepers lodge. 21 year old Frank Leonard Hann was found kneeling by his bedside with a bullet wound in his right temple and a revolver by his side. His superiors and colleagues all thought him to be “rather strange in his manners” according to the Leicester Chronicle of Saturday 6 May 1911, who reported on the inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court. Walter Sutton, the headkeeper, reported Hann to be “rather late with regard to meal times” and said that “after dinner sometimes he would sit down and read a book for about 20 minutes, then suddenly jump up and say ‘This way to the talking Mynah’ referring to a particular bird in the aviary.” Sutton also claimed to have seen Hann “reading novels”; an unwarranted slander according to Hann’s father who stood up at the back of the court and shouted that there had been no novels in his room and that his son had probably been reading a book on natural history. The coroner told him to sit down and said he would tolerate no further outbursts of that sort in his court. Further examples of Hann’s ‘strangeness’ came from Edward Tanner, a fellow keeper, who sand that “sometimes when in the aviary he would start singing at the top of his voice and then laugh in a deep, unnatural voice.”  Tanner told the inquest that Hann had showed him a revolver and said that he would use it to shoot stray cats in the garden. Edward Ockenden, the assistant superintendent, told the jury that Hann was reported for being absent without leave on 25 April and was dismissed and told to hand in his keys and uniform to the financial clerk. Hann appeared in Ockenden’s office to argue his case but was told by the assistant superintendent that there was nothing he could do, the matter was out of his hands. Hann left the office, slamming the door behind him but returned almost immediately, stormed up to Ockenden and slapped him on the left ear. Two or three of the clerks intervened and bustled Hann out of the office. An hour and a half later a shot was heard in the office and they soon all learned that Hann had killed himself. “Further peculiarities of the deceased whilst on duty in the bird house was given Mr. Arthur Denman, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, who said that had had occasion to caution him for whistling in an annoying manner. The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind.”

In 1928 one of the Zoo;s elephant keepers was accused of murdering his colleague, The case caused a sensation, not least because the murdered man was Sayid Ali, an Indian, and his murderer San Dwe, was from Burma. In the small hours of the morning on 25 August two policeman had climbed over the fence of the zoo after hearing moaning coming from inside. “At the foot of the Tapir House,” according to the Gloucester Citizen of Tuesday 04 September 1928, “over which San Dwe lived, they found him holding his foot and groaning, and wearing only his pants, vest, and a pyjama coat. When questioned he made incoherent statements. With the aid of torch Ali was found upstairs over the Tapir House lying dead on his bed, clad only in his vest, with the left side of his head badly battered, and his body also wounded. A pickaxe was at the bottom of the bed.” Dwe told the police that four men had tried to kill him and that he had hidden under the bed, and then jumped from his window. Dwe was taken to hospital and, for some reason, placed on a mental ward. Back at the Zoo “in the room at the Tapir House was found a blood-stained sledge hammer, and in the bedroom a pickaxe similarly stained. A green wooden box, the property of Ali had been opened, and the contents were scattered over the floor. On top of the box were two bags of coppers. Between the sheets and mattress of Ali's bed was a wallet containing £36 10s. in notes. There was also a Post Office Savings Bank Book, showing deposits of £60.” Later Dwe was taken to Albany Street Station where he made his first statement claiming that he had been laying in bed reading until about 10.30 when Ali put out the light and stood by the window. He said to Dwe “Come and look English, English, one by one," meaning that there was a couple in the street openly having sexual intercourse. Ali swore at them and “an Englishman shouted back, ‘Shut up vou black man! shut up!" San Dwe said he then went to sleep. He was awakened later and heard Sayid Ali being hit by someone. San Dwe took some blankets and jumped out of the window.” In a later interview Dwe told the police that over the previous few months he had been repeatedly approached, whilst training his elephants, by an English man always dressed in a trilby and trench coat, who would question him about Ali and his savings. Dwe confessed to accepting money from the man to answer his questions and to leave the door of their shared room open that night. Dwe said he forgot to leave the door open that night and the man in the trench coat and trilby and an accomplice had then battered the door down and murdered Ali for his savings. The two contradictory versions of the events of that night and the fact that none of Ali’s money appeared to have been taken cast suspicion on Dwe himself. In November he was found guilty of Ali’s murder and sentenced to death. In December he received a reprieve and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Sayid Ali and San Dwe photographed before the fateful events of the 25th August 1928